"Marie" Townes Van Zandt

There is not a more depressing-scary-horrible beautiful song than "Marie". If you have no idea who Townes Van Zandt was here's a quick bio: Born to a wealthy Texas family, left it to pursue music, had electro-shock treatment, fell off a roof, lived in a trailer and died of alcoholism, in between all of which he made a reputation for himself as the greatest songwriter of all time. Seriously, above Dylan in a lot of people's minds. Lyle Lovett, Steve Earle, Guy Clark...all of that music movement would be nothing without Townes's tutorship.

And Marie is a perfect example of the beautiful brutality of his music. Played in a minor key with a great base line run, the melody can be played by most anyone who has ever spent minimal time on the axe. Somewhat like a Dylan song the iceberg below the waterline is the ingredient that makes it so powerful. True artistry is doing so much with so little words and three chords. First verse:

"I stood in line and left my name
took about six hours or so
Well, the man just grinned like it was all a game
said they'd let me know
I put in my time till the Pocono line
shut down two years ago
I was staying at the mission till I met Marie
now I can't stay there no more"

The narrative continues with its voice running from place to place looking for a job and some money with Marie, mostly living under a bridge as a homeless couple. It has a Steinbeck-ian feel to it throughout the entire song, the only difference is that it is present day and this man is not any Oakie, the Joads have been long gone by the time Townes penned this piece.

And early on during the song it appears to NOT be that depressing and not really much of anything, just some guy mumbling about his problems but the height of the tension climaxes when Marie becomes pregnant, winter time has come and they still have nowhere to live. Unemployment checks have run out, welfare is unavailable and the only thing the narrator can think of doing is hopping a train and heading south except for the fact his wife is incapacitated by her pregnancy. The last verse:

"Marie she didn't wake up this morning
she didn't even try
she just rolled over and went to heaven
my little boy safe inside
I laid them in the sun where somebody'd find them
caught a Chesapeak on the fly
Marie will know I'm headed south
so's to meet me by and by"

It is hard to get the feel from these lyrics that one will get when listening to the horribly tragic guitar and Townes's low, rambling, understated voice. It is not happy like Woody Guthrie nor Ramblin' Jack Elliot's. It is sad, sad like a divorce and a death on the same day, the kinda sadness that leads one to drink. For Townes there is no question he had much more of this bottled up inside of him and no question to why he slowly killed himself with poison for forty years.